Friday, July 20, 2012

im famous in beijing

well yesterday i got the crushing news. i am not the winner of my dream. ive got all emotions right now. bitter, jealous, guilt, sad.
i feel like i let down my family and friends. i also feel like i can more strongly relate to american idol contestants when they get eliminated. not in the first rounds, but far into it. when they have made friends and have gone past the restyling process.
so thanks again for all of your support. i really can't express how shocked i was at all of you who were puling for me. it meant so much to know how many peole care for me. so thanks :)
so yes. back to beijing. i heard the news yesterday after i got back from a morning spent at chinas national museum. it was HUGE! now picture huge in your mind. take a second. picture the highest ceilings you can imagine, picture a football field just for ancient pottery. now DOUBLE it. yeah it was really big. so i did a few halls and then took a break on a giant wooden bench to do some writing in my journal. while i was sitting down i noticed a family had come sit down on the bench beside me. i kept getting that feeling someone was looking at me and when i would turn to see what it was, i saw one of the girls in the family pulling a classic camera stunt. she was pretending to take a picture of something behind me, when really she was just taking the picture of me. so when i turned and saw her doing this she got embarassed and pushed her younger sister at me.
"we photo you please?"
uhhh sure? i then proceeded to get my photo taken with each member of their family. even the grandma. and surprisingly enough it happened again when i was in the road to revolution hall. a little girl, maybe seven, and her friend came up to me and asked "photo?" "sure thing". then her friend snapped a couple pictures of us surrounded glass cases full of old chinese tools. she then looked at me and said "hug you". which didn't really seem so much a question as a statement about what she was about to do. as if she was just giving me warning. and then she opened her arms and came in for a big ol squeeze.
after my celebrity status at the museum wore off, i headed back to my hostel, found out the news...got sad, had a beer and then took a nap. i still am not fully adjusted to the time. which makes my days run with a wake up around 3am and i start getting tired around 7pm. so i figured a nap in the afternoon would give me the juice needed to stay up late and head to a party.
i had heard of a belgium national party through the two germans i met yesterday. nina and astrid. so i met up with mike around six. headed out for beer and supper and then we set off in search of a distant belgium party. after what seemed like ages of wandering up and down the same street, studying chinese characters to try and find the right road...
"well we are looking for triple equals sign, robot with two arms, triton with an antenna - street"
we finally found it. and after the party we discussed how it wasn't so much a belgium party, it kind of seemed like an "if you're white" party. there was even a beijing beatles band. when my yawning became too much to handle we decided it was time to grab a cab. easier said than done. a local told us not to pay for than 20 yuan for a cab back, and since we screamed tourists we got laughed at when thats what we offered to the cabbies standing around the busy intersections. there were also lots of rikshaws offering to take us for the price the cab would not. but we both knew that we had quiet a distance to cover to get back. i kept thinking unless your first name is lance, im not getting on that bike buggy with you. suddenly a young guy came up to us and motioned for us to follow him, that he would drive us for our offered fare. but when we followed him i realized he wasnt even a taxi driver. and he spoke no english. so we repeated tianamen square aloud several times to clarify the drop off point and then hoped for the best. soon enough we were stopped on a random street i didn't recognize. but he got out, pointed in a general direction and assured us that tiannamen square was just around the corner. just around the corner turned out to be a slightly exagerated statement. but with several map consultations we were on our way "home".
i was in bed and falling into sweaty slumber by two-thirty.

2 comments:

thanks john. still cant believe we finally were in the same country and didnt manage to eat weird food together. and i just checked out your blog...which i didn't know about, and i love it! you were not kidding at all about being a MAJOR foodie.